The Warrior Citizen

Across America, from the “Turning Point” generation to veterans and business leaders, warrior citizens are stepping up. As a non-politician, I am among those who believe our nation is at risk. So, a Maine veteran, businessman, lawyer, former federal investigator, and official, I am stepping up.

Truth is, many of us sit where you would have found me until recently, imagining Ronald Reagan or a forceful, thoughtful, principled Churchill-style or Lincoln-like leader will arrive to save us. We know – most of us – we do not need rocket science, just leaders with common sense and a moral compass.

At the federal level, we have a president who is “fighting the good fight,” working to keep taxes, regulations, and violence down, borders closed, drug traffickers out, trying to stop international aggressors like Iran, trying to rebalance global trade, and making life more predictable and affordable.

But in the back of our minds, we also know he is one man, mortal, uniquely resolved and decisive, and that the margin of control in the US House and Senate is perilously thin. If Democrats pick up three House seats or four Senate seats, everything changes. We return to lawless impeachments.

The truth is that, as Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” They truly are. We are edging, one election at a time, toward centralized control, an ideological course that, year by year, gets harder to reverse.

That is why 2026 is so important at the national and state levels, why every citizen who cares about the country must work to help elect – and in two years elect still more – people who are seasoned, thoughtful, hard-bitten patriots, capable, experienced, determined, uncompromisingly resolved.

Edmund Burke famously said, “All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” We cannot be those good men and women. We all know this, but it bears daily remembering.

We come – we, Americans – from a thoughtful stock, an assimilated, grateful, hardworking, and courageous group who did not fail to rise when needed, nor shrink and expect others to save them.

We – or our predecessors – knew not to trust those unworthy of it. We did not intentionally elect people ill-equipped to lead, or inexperienced, certainly not communists, to high posts. We did not allow cheating, theft of public money, and shameless lies to define us. We knew and wanted integrity.

We cannot – in this moment – grow lazy, become demoralized, or slacken in our conviction that integrity, common sense, and moral compass count. We are under assault, politically, legally, morally, spiritually, and even physically.

The New Englander, Ralph Waldo Emerson, spent his life urging people to think for themselves, to understand and fight for what their hearts knew to be right. “Wise men put their trust in ideas, not in circumstances,” he said, meaning it is better to be an idealist than a blind conformist.

Interestingly, Emerson inspired a German philosopher named Friedrich Nietzsche, a tough critic of those who lie, especially those in public office and who bend the truth to get there or stay there.

He would hate those – these days – who pretend to popularity they do not have, who push themselves through deceit on the public, whether with false polls, false news stories, or false narratives. His voice echoes through the ages, and even now, we should pause to hear it. 

Of one such character, he wrote, “I am not upset that you lied to me, I am upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” That is true of many in public life. It has to stop.

We have to be discerning, determined to step up to this fight, clear about what is missing, and then look hard at that trust issue, stake our claim to it, or faithless egoists and ideological misfits will win.

My plea here is for others to step up, to do so with a clear and determined heart, fully aware that you will be derided, slimed, attacked, mischaracterized, lied about, and yet…step up anyway.

In the end, this stepping up business, this being a “warrior citizen,” is about knowing the truth, believing it matters, and fighting for it, even if it hurts, because it will.

We have to turn into the wind and remember Churchill’s advice. He said, “Kites fly highest against the wind, not with it…Truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” So, step up with me, and let’s put integrity and truth back in charge. 

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!